


Catherines

by deepestfathoms



Category: Six - Marlow/Moss
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - High School, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bad Parenting, Based on Heathers, Dark Comedy, Drama, Emotional Manipulation, Faked Suicide, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Gallows Humor, Gen, Ghosts, Guilt, Hallucinations, Heathers AU, Heathers Spoilers, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Mom Friend Katherine Howard, Murder, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Rape/Non-con Elements, Self-Harm, Sister-Sister Relationship, Soft Catherine of Aragon, Stalking, Suicide Attempt, Trauma, UK Tour, Unhealthy Relationships, at times - Freeform, hopefully, just so much trauma sustained from a week, oh yeah this is a, sometimes she's kinda bitchy but that's okay, this fic goes into the trauma of the murders that Heathers didn't bother to look into
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:34:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25999087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deepestfathoms/pseuds/deepestfathoms
Summary: “Dear Diary,Catherine said she teaches people real life. She said, ‘Real life sucks losers dry. If you wanna fuck with the eagles, then you have to learn to fly.’I said, ‘So you teach people how to fly?’She said, ‘Yes.’I said, ‘You’re beautiful.’”OR:Heathers AU
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	Catherines

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE: This is the tour!verse, not the WE!verse!!!!! So Aragon would be Lauren!Aragon, Howard would be Jodie!Howard, and whatnot!

_“Dear Diary,_

_Catherine said she teaches people real life. She said, ‘Real life sucks losers dry. If you wanna fuck with the eagles, then you have to learn to fly.’_

_I said, ‘So you teach people how to fly?’_

_She said, ‘Yes.’_

_I said, ‘You’re beautiful.’”_

“GOD, come ON, Elizabeth!”

A muscled, gazelle-like leg slammed into Bessie’s back, causing her to flinch and drag her pen across the journal she was writing in, leaving a black line that obscured some of the words. Bessie wrinkled her nose, then squinted up through the headache-inducing overhead fluorescence to look at the beautiful young woman now standing before her.

Katherine Howard was a sight for sore eyes, that was for sure. Completely unblemished tan skin, wavy dirty blonde hair that fell like sun-kissed silk around her head, striking golden-green eyes, _muscles_ … The hot pink blazer she was wearing fit her body perfectly, and the black skirt she had on to go with it swished gently around her powerful thighs. Technically, they were breaking the dress code, as she didn’t have on any tights to go underneath it, but no teacher seemed to say anything about it. Bessie had to guess it was because of Howard’s father’s status and money.

“What’s your damage, Katherine?” Bessie snapped, though her voice cracked and wavered slightly, as it always did, rendering her comment about as effective as a baby white lion trying to roar to scare off predators.

“Don’t blame me, blame Catherine.” Howard retorted smoothly. “She told me to, ‘haul your ass to the cafe pronto.’” She looked up at the other girl standing there. “Back me up, Catherine.”

“Yeah, she really wants to talk to you, Elizabeth.” Catherine Parr said. She was taller than all of them, but quite a bit meeker than her two fellow K/Catherines. Her curly brown hair was done in a style that made Bessie’s scalp hurt just looking at it, but complimented her even darker brown eyes well. Her skin was the shade of melted caramel, clashing well with her signature color: blue. The blazer she had on such color was as expensive as Howard’s, but slightly more wrinkled and slightly frayed on one sleeve from her messing with the threads when she would read. The skirt she wore was plaid, which most people would find extremely ugly, but Bessie thought it fit Parr.

“Okay, okay,” Bessie said, standing up from the staircase she had been sitting on. “I’m coming. And, please, Bessie. Call me Bessie. We’ve been friends for, what? A year and a half now? Elizabeth is WAY too formal for me.”

Howard and Parr giggled, making a small smile twitch on Bessie’s lips. She liked making them laugh. Proved she could do one thing right and serve as the comedic relief for the group.

Bessie scooped her belongings up, messily stuffing her diary and pen into her messenger back, and then followed Howard and Parr down the hallway. Anyone standing in the way instinctively moved away like peasants parting for a queen. And they may as well have been, seeing as they were the most popular girls in school.

Okay, well-- at least Howard, Parr, and their quartet leader was. Bessie was more of a plus one, a special exception, a stray they found on the streets and thought was too pitiful to throw away.

Their group was called the Catherines (pretty cool that they managed to get three girls with the name Catherine, right? what luck!), and they ruled Crown Ridge High School. Everyone, from new Year 10s to long-lasting Year 13s, knew of their reign--even the teachers! Nobody messed with them, because they knew there would be hell to pay if they did.

Howard pushed open the set of double doors coming up in front of them, and the trio passed into a world of chaos.

The lunch room was always like this- noisy, thundering, booming, any other synonym for loud… Kids were absolutely everywhere, crammed into the lunch tables or sitting at the bistro or standing in the lunch lines, all talking, worrying, planning, reacting at once. 

And then, in the middle of the mess, there she stood: Catherine of Aragon.

Catherine of Aragon, or Catalina de Aragon as her heritage suggests, was like a yellow diamond in a bat-infested cave. She was gorgeous, that’s for sure, her luscious dark brown hair tied back in a perfect ponytail with thick marigold scrunchy, without a strand out of place, and her fair skin enviably clear. Her eyes were dark and challenging, like twin pieces of polished onyx poised in her sleek skull. The golden silk blazer (Bessie didn’t even know they made silk blazers until she first saw it) she wore glittered in the lights, as if it were charged with electricity, and the black skirt matching with it made her look like the queen of a wasp colony. When she saw Bessie coming over with Howard and Parr, she gave a snake-like smile that only meant she was up to something.

“Elizabeth,” She said, the only one to never use the nickname no matter how many times she was corrected, “finally.”

“Sorry to keep you waiting, your majesty,” Bessie apologized. She tried to sound mocking, but Aragon didn’t seem affected by the title she was given. If anything, she looked a little satisfied by it.

“I need you to write a hot and horny, but realistically lowkey note in Anna von Cleves’s handwriting so we can slip it onto Joan Asstley’s lunch tray when she isn’t looking.” Aragon told her, but even stuttering as she laid down her plan.

Anna von Cleves was on the rugby team and so hot she could turn even the straightest women gay. Joan Astley, on the other hand, was a thin, pale-skinned, weird-eyed outcast with no friends and hair as light as Bessie’s own--but natural. The two didn’t exactly mix very well.

“Shit, Catherine, I don’t have anything against Joan Astley!” Bessie said.

“Watch your language, little lion,” Howard teased.

Bessie’s ears flamed red. Ever since she got a new haircut, the Catherines would not stop saying the poofy hair on her head made her look like a lion cub.

“You don’t have anything for her, either.” Aragon told Bessie. Then, abundantly blessed with smugness, she went on, “Come on, it’s be very! The note will give her shower-nozzle masturbation material for weeks.”

Howard and Parr exchanged smirks. Bessie glanced at them and sighed.

“I’ll think about it,” She said.

“Don’t think,” Aragon said. “Do.”

Shuffling in one of the lunch lines, Joan was getting ready to pay for her tray of food. She was dressed in a rather ugly clash of overalls and a pink floral undershirt. Aragon wrinkled her nose at the outfit in disgust.

“Yuck,” She said. “Overalls.”

“I’m wearing overalls!” Bessie yelped.

“Yes, but they work on you,” Aragon said, patting Bessie’s head. “Elizabeth needs something to write on. Catherine, bend over.”

Parr sighed and bent over. A clipboard was shoved into Bessie’s hands, and Bessie had no choice but to use her friend as a portable desk and write the things Aragon began to say to her. When she was finished, she tore the page free and folded it up for Howard to deliver, which she did smoothly and painlessly without being noticed.

“And now we wait,” Aragon said with a pleased smirk. “Come, ladies. I brought lunch.”

The four of them gathered at their claimed table, where clean, neatly cut sandwiches were placed out in each of their spots, along with some fruit and vegetable slices and cookies.

“Turkey, ham, and cheese, mozzarella and swiss specifically, with a dash of mustard for Catherine,” Aragon declared. “BLT for me and Katherine. And then, a grilled cheese for Elizabeth.”

They all tittered at the last named food item. Bessie grinned cheekily at them.

“What?” She said innocently. “At least I didn’t ask for a peanut butter and butter sandwich like last time!”

“I still cannot believe you asked me to make a damn peanut butter and BUTTER sandwich,” Aragon said. “You are a creature, I hope you know that.”

“I do,” Bessie giggled. “And it is GOOD, okay? I like butter!”

“I’ll bring you a tub of butter when it’s my turn to bring lunch,” Parr joked, and she and Bessie flashed each other smiles.

“I look forward to it!”  
Aragon rolled her eyes at them in an amused way while Howard chuckled and shook her head. Somewhere behind their table, a pair of kids at a booth were shouting about donating to a charity for Africa.

“Blount,” Aragon said, “Guess what today is.”

Bessie watched the older girl grab the clipboard and flip to a new page, and sighed. “Lunchtime poll? What’s the question?”

“Yeah, so what’s the question, Catherine?” Parr asked.

“Goddamn, Catherine,” Aragon said. “You were with me in study hall when I came up with it.”

“I forgot!”

Aragon snorted. “Such a pillowcase,” She muttered gruffly.

“This wouldn’t be the bizarro thing you babbling about on the phone last night, is it?” Bessie tilted her head. 

“Of course it is.” 

Aragon and Bessie stood up to begin, and that’s when Bessie noticed someone staring at them. It wasn’t exactly uncommon, what with them being the most popular girls in the school, but she didn’t recognize this gawker. He looked...different. Different in a way she just couldn’t put her finger on. And she was so focused on trying to figure out exactly what it was that she didn’t even realize she was careening to the side until she bumped into someone.

“Oh-- Sorry!” Bessie said, then noticed that the person she had accidentally knocked into was Maria de Salinas, an old friend of hers. “Maria! Hey!”

Maria smiled. “Hi, Bessie.”

“Hey, I’m really sorry I couldn’t come to your birthday last month.” Bessie blurted without even thinking it. Aragon rolled her eyes at her side. 

“It’s okay,” Maria said. “Your mum said you had a big date. I’d probably miss my own birthday party for a date.”

Bessie felt a twinge of pain in her heart. She nudged Maria with a light laugh to try and get it to go away.

“Don’t say that,” She said.

“You know what?” Maria opened her bag. “I was looking around the other day and dug up these old photographs.” She handed a photo of her and Bessie during Halloween when they were younger, in which Maria was a fairy and Bessie was a bat.

“Oh, wow!” Bessie exclaimed, looking down at the picture with sparkling eyes. “This-- Wow. It brings back so many memories!”

“Come ON, Elizabeth!” Aragon said, yanking Bessie by the arm and making her drop the photo.

“I was talking to somebody!” Bessie barked as she was hauled towards a table with a cluster of popular kids.

“Oh well,” Aragon said dismissively. She halted them both in front of the table. “Hello, kids. Anne. Love your sweater.”

The head of the table, Anne Boleyn, glanced suspiciously up at Aragon before smiling tightly. She ran her hand over the sleeve of the designer emerald green sweater she was wearing.

“Thanks,” She said. “I just got it last night at The Limited. Totally blew my allowance.”

Aragon nodded like she cared, then read off of the clipboard, “Check this out: You win five million from the Publisher Sweepstakes, and the same day that Big Ed guy gives you the check, aliens land on the Earth and say they’re going to blow it up in two days. What do you do?”

“That’s easy,” Said another kid sitting at the table, Thomas Cromwell, before Anne even had the chance to give her own answer. “I’d just slide that wad right over to my father, ‘cause he is, like, one of the top brokers in the country.”

Aragon stared at him like a hawk watching a crippled mouse until Thomas wiped that stupid smirk off of his face. Bessie snorted lightly.

“If I got that money, I’d give it all to charity.” Anne said.

“You’re beautiful.” Bessie said.

Aragon growled deep in her throat. Bessie sidled around her and began walking to a new table. Aragon followed after her.

“If you’re going to openly be a bitch…” Aragon began.

“It’s just--” Bessie sighed, hoping to catch Aragon before she broke out on one of her furious tangents. “Catherine, why can’t we try talking to other people?”

“Fuck me gently with a chainsaw,” Aragon spat. “Do I look like Mother Teresea to you?”

“Well, you are Catholic, so…”

Aragon flicked Bessie in the nose, eliciting a tiny yelp of pain. 

“We have a reputation to uphold here, Elizabeth.” Aragon said. “Don’t act stupid. I know you aren’t.”

“Does it not bother you that everybody at this school thinks you’re a piranha?” Bessie asked.

“Like I give a shit.” Aragon answered breezily. “They all want me either as a friend or a fuck. I’m worshipped here, and you can be, too. And you’re just a Year 11.” She ruffled Bessie’s hair, earning a disgruntled noise from the girl.

“Come on, Catherine.” Bessie said. She brushed out of place white locks out of her face and looked up at Aragon. “Please?”

Aragon gazed down at Bessie, then wrinkled her nose. “Ugh,” She growled. “Don’t look at me with those big, stupid eyes of yours. Come on.”

Bessie beamed. “Thank you!” She chirped.

And so, they went around the cafeteria, asking the lunchtime poll question to a variety of new people, most of which looked startled that the two of them were even talking to them. They got an abundance of answers, varying from normal, to interesting, to completely weird. But they were the types of answers they had never gotten before this day. By the time they were done, Joan Astley had read through the note given to her and was starting to get up from her table.

“Come on, come on!” Parr waved Aragon and Bessie over excitedly. 

“It’s happening!” Howard whisper-yelled.

The four of them watched as meek little Joan staggered her way over to the jock table, where Anna von Cleves and other various athletes sat, talking loudly. The girl stuttered something to Anna, then set the note down, which was immediately snatched up by Francis Dereham. After a moment of reading, he burst out into laughter, followed by everyone else at the table when the paper was passed around. Joan’s eyes filled with tears and she ran out of the cafeteria.

The Catherines were all laughing, while Bessie just frowned, guilt racing through her. Aragon noticed her expression and sighed heavily. She began to run her long shellac fingernails through Bessie’s hair, straightening and smoothing out the mess on the top of her head.

“You wanted to be a part of the most powerful clique in school, honey,” Aragon said. “If I wasn’t already the head of it, I’d want the same thing.” She made a tiny braid, then released the girl.

“Who’s that guy over there?” Bessie asked, nodding at the young man that had been staring at them. She didn’t know how to reply to Aragon, so she just decided to switch the topics.

“His name is Henry Tudor,” Howard answered her. “He’s in my Economics class.”

Bessie nodded slowly, picked up the clipboard form off of their lunch table, then began to walk over to the new guy.

The first thing she noticed was the trench coat he was wearing. The second thing was that he was built like a bear- large and powerful. His hair was golden blonde and he had piercing bright blue eyes. A smirk curled on his lips when he saw her coming over.

“Hello, Henry Tudor,” Bessie said.

“Greetings and salutations.” Henry replied languidly. “You a Catherine?”

“I’m a Bessie,” Bessie said. “Not in a cow way, though, Just my nickname.”

Henry chuckled and nodded. “I see.” 

“This may seem like a really stupid question,” Bessie said, raising the clipboard up.

“There are no stupid questions.” Henry said.

“You win five million from the Publisher Sweepstakes, and the same day that Big Ed guy gives you the check, aliens land on the Earth and say they’re going to blow it up in two days. What do you do?”

Henry furrowed his eyebrows. “That’s the stupidest question I’ve ever heard.” He said. “I don’t know. Maybe row out to the middle of a lake somewhere, bring a bottle of tequila, my sax, and some Bach. Then I’ll just sit back and watch the fires come.”

Bessie nodded, smiling, despite the weird gut feeling she had that was saying she needed to get away from this guy. “How very.”

Before Henry could reply, Aragon suddenly grabbed Bessie by the arm and swelled up like a venomous snake before Henry. “Let’s go, Elizabeth.” She said.

“Okay, I’m coming,” Bessie said. “Later.”

“Definitely.” Henry said back.

Aragon began guiding Bessie back to the table, where they finished eating with the other two Catherines. As she ate her sandwich, Bessie could feel Henry’s gaze on her, burning holes into her clothes, and that gut feeling turned into full on discomfort. It got so bad that she deliberately tried to avoid his line of sight while leaving the cafeteria, which caused her bump straight into someone for the second time that day. This time, the person was a lot less understanding than the first.

“Hey!” He roared. “Watch where you’re going, you fat fuck!”  
“S-sorry!” Bessie stuttered, feeling her cheeks burn with embarrassment. She suddenly felt a lot more exposed, as if she wasn’t wearing anything at all.

“Did all that hair bleach kill your brain, too?” One of the guy’s friends snarked.

“Or just fucking blind you?” Another said.

And then, the Catherines were there, materializing before them like a trio of vengeance-seeking angels in the lights. Howard eased Bessie behind her while Aragon riled herself up to her full size.

“What did you just say to her?” Aragon asked, her words like a hidden bear trap underneath a blanket of leaves.

“She bumped into me!” The first guy blurted in a woebegone voice.

“Oh dear, what a disaster,” Parr mused.

“How many times have I told you, Dudley, that she’s with us?” Aragon said. “Do you REALLY want to mess with us right now?”

“No,” Dudley muttered.

Aragon was pleased. “Good. Now apologize to Elizabeth at once.”

“Sorry I yelled at you,” Dudley said to Bessie.

“Us, too.” Said his friends.

“It’s okay,” Bessie said softly.

“Wonderful.” Aragon smiled, but her voice was all murderous stalactites, sugary-sweet and poisonous. She pointed to each of the three in turn as she continued to speak. “Anyway. _He_ was asking for feet pics in private messages, _he_ is cheating on his girlfriend with his sister, and _she_ is thoroughly sick of them both and wishes she had better friends to talk to.”

With that, she turned and escorted her clique out of the cafeteria and to the bathroom.

“Are you okay, sweetie?” Howard asked softly, massaging one of Bessie’s shoulders comfortingly. Her voice was gentle and so caring, almost like a mother’s. 

“Yeah,” Bessie said. “I’m okay.”

“Stupid bitch,” Aragon snarled underneath her breath, furiously pacing around the bathroom.

“You aren’t fat, by the way,” Parr said to Bessie.

“But--”

“Don’t even try it Elizabeth,” Aragon hissed. “Or I will cut out your tongue, laminate it, and then pose it in my foyer, and don’t think I won’t do it.”

Bessie giggled softly at her threat. As strange and slightly violent it may have been, it meant Aragon cared about her. Because if she didn’t, Bessie surely would have been called fat again.

“Okay,” She said. “But I’m fine, really.”

“Good.” Aragon. “Fuckass doesn’t know who he’s talking about. You look great, Elizabeth. Even if that cardigan is questionable.”

Bessie looked at herself in one of the mirrors and saw that she truly did stick out like a sore thumb with the Catherines. If it wasn’t her bleached white hair, then it was her baby face, and if it wasn’t her baby face, then it was how she was slightly more chubby than the rest of them. Howard said it made her look soft and cute, and she didn’t ever know how to respond to that, so she would just laugh. And if it wasn’t any of that stuff, then it was her awful sense of fashion. Today, it was overalls, a black and white cardigan, and a light purple striped shirt, as purple was supposed to be her signature color.

“I got it from the thrift store,” Bessie said proudly.

“I am not surprised.” Aragon said. “You are not wearing that for the party tonight, by the way.”

“What about--”

“You aren’t wearing those galaxy suspenders, either!”

“W--”

“No!”


End file.
